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| photo: Mick Cottin | |
Cote Smith grew up in Leavenworth, Kans., and various army bases around the country and earned an MFA from the University of Kansas. His work has been featured in One Story and FiveChapters, and his debut novel, Hurt People, was just published in trade paperback by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
On your nightstand now:
I just cleaned my nightstand. Previously there were several books I recently finished (Gutshot by Amelia Gray; A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin, Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff; Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins); a clock whose batteries died at least three years ago, and a lot of cat and dog fur. Now there is slightly less fur, Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow, Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer and a Wii U Gamepad so I can play Super Metroid every night before bed.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I read all of R.L. Stine's Fear Street books. I have no idea if they are good, but they were scary, unapologetically violent and featured beautiful girls on the cover. They were campy horror movies for kids. There might be something wrong with me.
Your top five authors:
George Saunders, Amy Hempel, Dan Chaon, Jennifer Egan, Lauren Groff.
Book you've faked reading:
There are too many to count. So if you ask me if I've read a book and I say yes, then promptly change the subject to R.L. Stine or Super Metroid, I was most likely lying.
Book you're an evangelist for:
I like to think that the books that need evangelizing are the ones that aren't getting enough attention. For example, is anyone talking about Rebecca Lee's Bobcat and Other Stories? We should be.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Other than the Fear Street books mentioned earlier, I've never actually done this, but my wife, a veterinary technician, bought the paperback of Aryn Kyle's God of Animals because it had a horse on the cover. And I'm so glad she did, because I read it when she was finished and absolutely loved it.
Book you hid from your parents:
Are my mother's old Victoria's Secret catalogues considered books? What if I bound two or three of them together before stuffing them beneath my bed?
Book that changed your life:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I like to think that I was born an empathetic person, but really I just happened to read this book in eighth grade.
Favorite line from a book:
From Amy Hempel's short story "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried":
"And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby, come hug, fluent now in the language of grief."
A perfect line from a perfect story.
Five books you'll never part with:
Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Virgil's Aeneid (the Pharr Latin edition)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Cathedral by Raymond Carver
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
My first semester of graduate school, Deb Olin Unferth had us read Amy Hempel's Reasons to Live. I didn't have the writing experience or skills to truly appreciate how amazing that collection is, but I was still blown away.